Acacia Aims to Go Public as Disappointing Year For Tech IPOs Closes

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U.S. tech IPOs this year can probably be best described as scarce and underwhelming, but Acacia Communications will try to buck those trends with its initial public offering.

The Maynard, MA-based telecommunications technology company announced intentions to go public in an SEC filing on Monday. It said it could raise up to $125 million, although that number could change when Acacia prices its stock.

Acacia’s IPO plans come as the tech industry closes the books on a disappointing year for going public. Only 28 U.S. tech companies did so this year, the lowest number since 2009, according to Dealogic stats reported Dec. 11 by Techcrunch. At that time, half of the tech companies that went public in 2015 were trading below their IPO price, Techcrunch said, although some have surged past expectations.

Rapid7 is the only Boston-based tech company to go public this year. Another company with significant Massachusetts operations, U.K.-based Mimecast, also went public.

Depending on the timing and performance, Acacia could give the Boston area some early IPO momentum in 2016. It plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ACIA.

Founded in 2009, the company sells equipment that it says helps boost network performance and improve the infrastructure that handles high-speed data transfer. Acacia raised more than $32 million from investors including Matrix Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, and Summit Partners, according to the SEC filing.

Acacia became profitable last year, the document shows. The company’s 2014 net income was $13.5 million, on $146.2 million in revenue, compared with a $1.2 million net loss on $77.6 million in revenue in 2013.

Through the first nine months of 2015, Acacia reported a $17.9 million profit on $170.5 million in revenue.